Video 80% of Internet traffic by 2020

From Branislav Pekic in Rome

September 9, 2016

Internet video will account for 80 per cent of total consumer Internet traffic by 2019, compared to 64 per cent currently, according to a report on audio-visual services in the digital era by Rome-based think-tank i-Com.

During the period 2010-2014, consumer revenues for SVoD services grew from €40.7 million to €844.1 million in the 22 EU countries for which market data is available, with a compound annual growth rate of 113 per cent.

TV broadcasting still has the lion’s share (63 per cent) of the audiovisual market, accounting for €66.5 billion in 2014. Pay-TV recorded a 17 per cent growth between 2010 and 2014, while the advertising market modestly grew by 1.4 per cent in 2014.

Pay-TV increased revenues by almost 9 per cent between 2010 and 2014 and may expand further thanks to the wide availability of on-demand services distributed through the Internet.

In 2016, there were 6,154 linear services, or 70.2 per cent more than in 2009. Of these, 1,642 services (27 per cent of total) are located in the UK. The UK, together with France (total channels 556), Germany (509) and Italy (494) represent the main audiovisual markets, collecting over half the linear audiovisual services of the entire EU.

All EU countries registered an increase in the total number of established TV channels from 2013 to 2016, except for Sweden and Romania. In 2016, there were 1,187 HD channels, eight times the figure of 2009. Sport channels (total 631) grew by 61 per cent in seven years, followed by entertainment (445), film (386) and music TV channels (313).

France is the most advanced market for VoD services, with 325 available of the 495 established services in 2016.